McArdle laments high electricity prices

Electricity prices are too high, with recent federal government decisions set to make life even harder on the average Queensland family.

This is according to state energy minister Mark McArdle, who claimed federal climate change minister Greg Combet's announcement to "artificially increase" the Renewable Energy Target will keep costs up.

The Gillard government has fixed the 20 per cent RET at a target of 41,000 gigawatt hours, the politician explained, but this is based on inflated electricity production.

This means that while demand for power is dropping, the target remains the same - raising the burden of renewable policies on electricity bills.

"Green policies are now adding more than 17 per cent to the average electricity bill, without taking into account the impact of solar photovoltaic on domestic rooftops, which is also being passed onto all consumers on their power bills," he added.

Mr McArdle said a combination of the RET and the carbon tax was effectively creating a situation where 33 per cent of energy bills were coming from environmentally friendly schemes.

He claimed that the Queensland Competition Authority had already revealed the RET added $102 to the average household's energy charges, while the carbon tax was responsible for an extra $170.